"Shame, I thought the no magic idea could make things interesting. Maybe another day." Nemo noted. "We'll match then, after all this mission really is an opportunity to let our partnered strength shine. It'll be almost like I'm part of your Crux gang, I'll look like your bodyguard now. Not exactly the most appropriate attire for a boat, but inappropriateness is the heart of punk fashion anyways." Nemo began to reassemble his firearm, finished with it's maintenance. Afterwards he placed it down on the table.

"I know what we're up against now, while it is indeed more dangerous than my 'recon mission' ended up being, it's not as dangerous as that could of been. I know a fair bit about Rutger and Johhny, and more about Seidon and his crew. I've even had dealings with Seidon's smuggling operation in the past before I was imprisoned. Unless God himself is waiting to personally smite us behind that storm, it wont be that bad." Nemo explained. "Seidon is strong, the top people in his crew aren't pushovers either, but in the end they are just smugglers. Rutger and his protege will by far be the biggest obstacle to overcome. Given that we are the muscle of this party, it's probably going to end up being our job to handle them."

"From hereon out I'll make sure you tag along on all my little midnight runs. I am Nemo Smiley after all, I have a reputation to uphold. If we get ambushed, if things look bleak, I'll just have to slaughter them all." Nemo stated, with a tone much more serious and deadpan than usual.

Nemo's overtly cautious nature when it came to Raiya's well being irritated her a bit. She grit her teeth and balled her fists, the tuft of hair on the top of her head stood up angrily as electricity coursed through her body.

"Even if God Himself stood to oppose me, I would strike Him down. I have learned a thing or two about slaying gods. It's really too bad that we were cordoned off during our battle with Thadeus, or you might have caught a glimpse of my god slaying power yourself." Raiya explained in a slightly irritated voice.

Nemo let out a giggle in response to Raiya's statement. "Now that's what I like to hear. Your determination inspires me, Raiya. Plus it's quite cute when you get all huffy." Nemo cheered, slumping over lazily onto his side on the couch after he was done.

"Your sword, it's quite nice. I started off as a sword duelist myself. Rapiers and sabers were my specialty, later I picked up larger European swords as well. Blades will always hold a special place in my heart, despite the fact that I don't use them as frequently as I used to. The details are exquisite, the extended blade length is nice, and don't think I missed that kogatana pigsticker you have in that saya pocket either. Along with it's kozuka handle it's a nice added touch." Nemo remarked, still laying on his side like he was about to fall asleep. "Overall you have an impressive and versatile piece, how did you happen to come across it?" He asked.

"I have multiple pieces from Japan myself too. My other moniker isn't "The Collector" for nothing. Though I must admit one in particular is my favorite." Nemo added.

Zoey sighed and melted through the shadows of the corner of the room into her own, locking the door. Sitting cross-legged, she turned her magic in on it's self to create an illusion in her head. The illusion was surround with flat, steel walls. In her paws, one of her throwing stars, and in front of her a terminal. The room was blank, like a movie traing room, and the terminal had only one, glowing button; 'begin'. She tapped the button and began the training exercise, striking each 5 centimeter diameter circular target levitating in an area around her. The advantages of this form of mental training was that it could be done nearly anywhere, it was low energy, and it helped visualizing the follow through. With her confidence in her prior field work, she figured this would be enough for the mission.

The mission was, to say the least, challenging, but that was no less than what Wes had expected or hoped for. As the meeting progressed, however, he held his tongue, pursing his lips as he looked on. The most he did was nod at Zoe’s mention of himself, but he still felt slightly unsettled at Nemo’s response to what Wes saw as a perfectly fair point. A ship was bound to be cramped, and that, for someone like him, would be pretty painful to deal with. His magic suppression would certainly come in handy for disabling wards, especially if there really would be so much latent mana to take, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.

Now that he felt he had passed through some sort of initiation, Wes went off to find a room to prepare, considering they didn’t have too much time to prepare before it was time to go. Once he had found one, which was definitely to his delighted liking, the first thing he did was flop down on the bed and mash his face into the squishy pillow. Preparing (and exploring) could wait a little while. His temptation to poke around was overwhelming, but given the distrust he already faced, he didn’t want to start anything or lose focus right before a mission would start with someone walking in on him rummaging through their underwear.

Rolling onto his side, and after a few moments his back, he sighed happily and closed his eyes for the time being.

"Actually, good idea. I was originally thinking of a platform with the rune inscribed to it and the Paragon would simply stand at the center of it. Though keeping it in a container-of-sorts would probably make it more secure when I think about it," Travis replied just as he and Felix arrived at the lab, "simply keeping it out in the open would probably invite other issues..."

Travis looked around the lab, looking for anything that the Paragon could be placed into securely. While he probably couldn't notice it himself, the Untalent was passively expressing excitement about using the rune he himself created to blind as something as mighty or omnipotent as a Paragon. Practicality nearly swept away from his imagination as his eyes scoured the lab for anything visually appealing to match his work and the Paragon itself. Eventually though, he focus landed on the Paragon's current receptacle.

"I suppose the Paragon's current case would do unless you may have anything else better in mind to physically contain it."

Felix beamed, "I thought you'd never ask!" Felix flicked his wrist and a medium sized wooden chest appeared in his arms in a flurry of blue flame.

"I whipped up a little something over the past few days. Wood working can be a quite soothing break from studying." Felix said.

He set down the lacquered cherry wood box on the table in the center of the room. He opened the perfectly square box to reveal three rows of three column compartments for a total of nine compartments. Each compartment had its own functioning hatch.

Felix retrieved the Paragon of Espiel from its current container and transferred it to the first compartment of the chest and closed the hatch to the compartment. Then he closed the chest and burned a simple encoded seal rune on the face of the chest with his finger.

"The seal rune will keep it the chest locked to anyone other than us two. While I don't necessarily mistrust anyone on the team, taking precautions against unknown variables seems like a good idea to me." Felix scratched the back of his head and gave a smiling glance to Travis, "...And while you are an unknown variable... Not to sound rude or anything... But I think you pose the least amount of a threat." Felix laughed nervously. Being upfront and genuine was a trait that Felix was famous for, but sometimes his honesty was a bit brutal.

"Annnnywayy..." Felix's verbal elongation and inflection seemed to suggest he wanted to change the subject, "The top of the chest is pretty much a flawless surface, so it is primed and ready for your rune."

---

Raiya flicked her wrist and manifested her katana in a burst of purple electricity. She set it on the table in full view of Nemo. The ornate katana had a black scabbard, a blue and yellow cord that wrapped neatly around the scabbard, the hand guard and end cap were both black, a gold metal snake ornament rested on top of white snake skin and underneath blue silk hand grip. The hand guard was a black steel square that was a quarter of an inch thick with a snake coiled in the middle of the square adding the substance needed to connect the square to the handle. A small knife was tucked into the a small wooden lip almost like a pocket on the scabbard, its snake pattern handle was the only part of the small knife that was visible.

"Oh, this old thing?" Raiya commented nonchalantly, "It was custom made for me by the Yakuza as per my own design. Their blacksmith is a great craftsmen, he followed my specifications to the smallest detail." Raiya replied, "Though, I do have quite a large collection of ancient Japanese weaponry back at my loft. I'm a bit of a fanatic when it comes to ancient Japanese culture."

"Things are often better when they are make bespoke to you, aren't they?" Nemo commented, sitting back up in the couch inspecting the sword from his seat. "I suppose you might be interested in some of the things in my possession then. My favorite type of weapons to collect are the ones considered to be cursed. I can sort of relate to them in ways. For me they are the closest thing to a companion I could get." Nemo explained. "And without a doubt, this is one of the finest pieces I possess." Nemo said, waving his middle and index fingers in front of him, causing a distortion in the air and spawning a black katana. It floated there for a moment before Nemo extended his right hand out to catch it as it fell.

The first thing to note was that the blade seemed to have it's own magical presence in addition to Nemo's own. It was certainly ominous and dark, matching the color scheme on the sword, which seemed to compliment Nemo's own in a yin yang black and white sort of way. It had a dark iron pommel, black silk wrappings on a rayskin handle with a iron oni caricature ornament, a circular iron tsuba designed to look like a person's head, iron spacers, and a black lacquered saya with a black saego cord.

Nemo gently placed it down on the same table Raiya's sword was on. Compared to Raiya's katana, Nemo's was a shorter standard size. "This is a Sengo Muramasa blade. I won it in a duel long ago, ever since it's been one of my favorites. It's been a match for me, seeing as all of it's 'downsides', uncontrollable blood-lust, and the need to kill after unsheathing the blade have no effect on a anti-magic user such as myself. Regardless, I don't want to disrespect it, every time I do draw it, it's to kill." Nemo finished.

Nemo didn't show the actual blade on the weapon, but anyone who has knowledge on Muramasa's blades would know that it probably has a mirror image hamon, with a shallow valley midereba pattern between a cluster of gunome shapes. And a fish belly tanagobara shaped nakago.

Travis eyed the chest only briefly to inspect its craftsmanship and structural reliability in deducing its compatibility with his blinding rune. There wasn't much to the simple box Felix himself crafted aside from the noticeable cherry wood construction and glossed coating. While falling short of the artistic standard Travis has assumed, the chest's linear design was practical and was nevertheless sizeable enough for the rune to be inscribed to without compromising its flat image.

"Perfect," announced Travis as he reached into one of his inner trench coat's pockets and produced a large rolled up scroll. Through his own method of casting a levitation art, Travis underhandedly tossed the scroll into the air just as his spell caught it and carefully unwound the page, revealing his complex magic circle, "This may take a few minutes to imprint given that much of the scripting is mainly written in instructional sub-text..."

Manipulating the article so that is floated neatly over the chest, the Unltalent then casted the speel responsible for carrying out the imprinting of the rune. Transparent embers of prism-illuminating colors began to sprout from the top of the chest as Travis commanded it. As the temperature-less fumes scatted across the surface of the chest, so did the glowing threads of the rune soon developing along the paths of each ember. Travis' face remained expressionless as he focused on installing the rune. Small traces of sweat began to appear as he ensured each detail was finely applied to the cherry wood box.

"Almost...there!"

With the rune now completed, the cindering traces that wrote the entire script quickly flickered into nothingness along with the scroll rolling itself back into its condensed form and calling into Travis' hands. The rune itself continued to radiate a stream of light through the crevasses of each finely written detail while pulsating a soft aura around the box. Only for a brief instant did the rune's light aggressively surge outward, expelling with it a loud but localized roar before returning to its passive state again.

"Looks like the rune found and isolated Espial within the chest," explained Travis as he marveled at his creation executing its purpose, "it'll likely do that every time it secures a new Paragon...though I'll admit the process seemed more...belligerent than I had anticipated."

Felix placed his hand under his chin as he watched the whole spectacle with critical examination. After the whole thing was finished, Travis commented on the process and the comment seemed rhetorical, but Felix extrapolated upon it regardless.

"The violent nature of the paragon suppression is to be expected actually. I was watching the whole thing with manalysis activated. The rune you expertly crafted didn't just simply suppress the Paragon. It quite literally severed the paragon's ley lines, completely cutting the Paragon off from any ethereal interaction." Felix rubbed his chin for a moment, "That... might be a problem." he mumbled under his breath.

Felix took out a piece of parchment and began scrawling a massive numerical equation upon it, upon finishing his writing he paused a moment.

"I have never seen ley lines severed before. In order for an aura to interact with another aura, ley lines are formed bridging the gap between auras. Before mana becomes an aura, it is simply mana energy. Raw mana energy is filtered through our mana wells and then converts into aura mana energy. Er... I suppose filtered isn't the right word. Quite the opposite actually, pure mana energy is diluted in our mana wells. Exactly why this happens is up for debate, but in the Arcanocracy we came to a consensus that it is our souls or our individual spiritual essence that comes in contact with the pure mana energy and then becomes infused and diluted. Pure mana energy needs no ley lines to interact with itself, because pure mana energy is the same substance as... well... itself! In order for an aura to interact with another aura, however, ley lines are established. This isn't something done consciously, rather it is an automatic reaction between two auras. The reason why the reaction was so violent is because Espial's aura was passively interacting with our auras. Which is fine..." Felix explained, "Aura's in close proximity to each other passively interact, it is natural, mana is attracted to other mana regardless of how many additives are mixed in with it. But if the ley lines are severed, that might mean..." Felix paused. He took his glasses off, closing them and placing them down to the left of the parchment in front of him. He closed his eyes and rubbed them in a gesture of deep thought.

"If the ley lines are severed that means the Paragons will become unusable by another aura. The means in-which to interface with the paragon have also been severed." Felix opened the chest and carefully extracted the paragon. With his manalysis he could tell his aura and the aura of the paragon were not interacting at all, but rather it almost seemed like they were repelling each other.

He placed the paragon back down into the compartment and closed the chest. "On one hand, this means the paragons do not need to stay in the chest to be in close proximity to one another. On the other hand, it also means interfacing with the paragons will be impossible until we figure out a way to fix it." Felix explained, "As I've said before, I've never seen ley lines severed before. A ley line isn't something that I thought would even conceptually be sever-able. Who knows, it might just be time sensitive and the paragon without the rune would just naturally reestablish its ability to create ley lines?"

Felix retrieved his glasses and replaced them upon his face. "But that rune! Imagine the applications! Once we figure out how to reestablish ley lines, that rune could be used on a person to prevent them from being psychically tampered with, it could prevent illusions, and every manner of curse in existence!" Felix raised his hands in a grandiose excited manner, "Although," Felix placed his hand back under his chin resuming a state of deep thinking, "someone with this rune on them wouldn't just be immune to curses, they'd be immune to blessings too. A person with this rune wouldn't be able to be healed by other auras or given bolstered strength or any sort of blessing..." Felix resumed his normal composure and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, needless to say, I think it would be best if we did not put any other paragons into this box before we have figured out this ley line conundrum." Felix finished.

---

Raiya gasped, she unconsciously reached her right hand up to her mouth in disbelief.

"How in the blazing hellfire of hades did you get your hands an a Muramasa!?" Raiya exclaimed.

Muramasa's work was one of a kind, ancient, and definitely cursed. Regardless of the curse though, it was said that Muramasa's work was some of the best if not the ultimate best work in terms of tachi smithing rivaled only by Masamune. She'd never seen one of these blades in person, but she knew the Yakuza had at least one in their posession, and it was not ever wielded by anyone, but kept sealed in a box locked away in a vault. The fact that Nemo was in possession of one was frightening to say the least.

"I got it as a spoil of war from one of my past jobs. It's former owner was a man with samurai heritage living in Kyoto. The sword was passed down as a family heirloom for quite some time." Nemo replied. "That's how I knew the sword's effects were real. As I got to see it's influence on him first hand." He added. "It was a worthwhile fight, and a worthwhile reward."

"I get my hands on a lot of things." Nemo said, wiggling his fingers. "If there's anything you need, all you need to do is say the word."

Raiya looked skeptically at Nemo. She pursed her lips and then let out a puff of exasperated air.

"Well, if you ever run into any more sacred Japanese swords, let me know." Raiya replied before retrieving her own sword and sending it to back to her manainventory in a burst of purple electricity.

"I'm sure one will turn up sooner or later, and I'll be waiting for that day." Nemo replied, holding out his hand to levitate the sword back to him. "I've got it, for the handicap I'll just have to use this. I need practice anyways." Nemo said, sounding somewhat enthusiastic about it.

"Do you think we should come up with some sort of combination spell?" Nemo asked.

"Indeed...huh...didn't think I'd see my self actually 'breaking' a Paragon..." Travis said aloud, sounding somewhat amused with the unexpected turn of events. Still, his rune had backfired in a way that made the Paragon itself nearly useless; a dilemma that he undoubtedly felt guilty of conjuring.

But he knew he couldn't be too hard on himself for this unanticipated problem. Neither he or Felix could have possibly foreseen how the rune could have had such a negative effect over the Paragon. Granted though, with little understanding over the Paragons and how they truly functions functioned, and outcome such as what they witnessed could never have been predicted.

Despite what seemed like a colossal setback, Travis could now begin to see what may of gone wrong, "While writing the rune, I had included several redundant verses and lattices that were meant to maximize its overall efficiently and potential of repelling any and all auras the Paragon could pick up on..."

Travis then stared at the top of the chest where his run was now imprinted too, "It seems I've overestimated the Paragon's competence in how it can respond to other auras and establishing the necessary ley-lines to make interfacing possible."

"I suppose this means we have stumbled upon an actual limit of the Paragon. Now that we know isolating it entirely isn't the way to go, I could work on a more exceptional version of the rune with a few leeways to at least allow the necessary aura correspondence to occur."

Felix pondered for a moment before shaking his head.

"I don't think your rune was a failure at all. In fact, I think the unexpected way that it has functioned is a miracle." Felix replied, "I think the rune should be kept as is. We should, however, focus on an ability to restore ley lines that have been severed, if such a thing is possible. Having a dud paragon works very well for our cause. However, if in an event, for whatever reason, we NEED the paragons, we would need a way to restore the ley lines. And I think that is what your next project should be focused on." Felix finished with a pat on Travis's shoulder.

"Don't beat yourself up, you've done a great job in the little time that you have had."

---

Raiya cocked her right eyebrow in an expression of disbelief.

"Uh, you're not serious are you?" Raiya scoffed, "Combination magic can only be used by people who are close to one another, who synergize with one another. Trying something like that without a real relationship or mutual personal understanding could seriously hurt both of us."

Raiya remembered back to her Vatican days, learning about combination magic and the idea of intertwining two people's aura's for one spell. She had never actually done it, but she understood the concept quite well.

Zuri stayed quiet throughout the entire meeting since she doesn't talk much unless someone mentions her name or when she's curious about something. She was a bit nervous about tagging along on such a dangerous mission for her first mission, but she felt confident that her allies would protect her if she was ever in any danger.

Since most of them were preparing for the mission, she decided to do the same. However, instead of preparing her weapons, runes or whatnot like the others, she wanted to talk to Felix about her powers and some small talk to get to know him better, maybe because Felix and Zuri had auras that are polar opposites of one another.

She could sense Felix's bright aura from a distance, so she heads toward it. After a few minutes of walking, Zuri arrived at the room where Felix and Travis were in. Zuri stood at the door for a few seconds before knocking on it to see if they'd let her in. She felt nervous, even though there wasn't anything to be nervous about. "I hope I'm not interrupting them.." she mumbles as she waits at the door.

The enthusiasm in Nemo's face and voice seemed to have been curbed by Raiya's response.

"I suppose you're right... It's probably not a good idea." He replied, tapping his pointer fingers together. "We could try doing some bonding exercises?" Nemo suggested. "We could hug? That should probably work."

Nemo didn't seem to have much experience with what he was talking about, which wasn't much of a surprise.

Raiya crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

"It takes much more than simple physical contact to create a relationship. It's like you've never had a friend befo-" Raiya stopped and eyed Nemo up and down, "You never have had a friend before, have you?" Raiya asked with genuine curiosity.

"Oh... well, I have lots of friends." Nemo replied, somewhat halfheartedly. "Business friends. They do favors for me, and I do favors for them." Nemo clarified.

Nemo broke eye contact with her, resting his arms on his lap and looking downwards. "I suppose that doesn't really count, does it?" He admitted. "No, I haven't ever had a friend. People were never very fond of me because of my appearance. In the beginning it was hard, but I've gotten used to it. Now I see it more like an advantage, my lack of any type of relationships makes it impossible to use against me." Nemo explained.

Travis considered Felix's comment briefly. Despite his rune performing well past its intended function, Felix decided to keep the inscribed spell active instead of seeking a more reliable and toned down rune to replace it. What intrigued him next was that Felix now sought a solution to the dilemma that had accidentally been made; a way to reverse the rune's extreme deadening effects and reestablish the Paragon's ley lines. The Untalent felt more comfortable with retooling the existing rune so that it wouldn't lock down the Paragon so harshly but he nevertheless acknowledged and appreciated in what Felis had in mind.

Felix's friendly gesture reassured Travis' resolve over the success of his work, "I think I can cook something up...just as long as don't lose any more sleep in the process and-

Travis' attention broke just as the unexpected sound from the door beaconed them. He remained slilent for a second before turning to Felix, "...you wanna answer that?"